CPB Discussion Paper 116
European natural gas markets: resource constraints and market power

ISBN: 978-90-5833-387-2

Gijsbert Zwart

The European natural gas market is characterized by declining indigenous resources, particularly in the UK and the Netherlands, and a growing dependence on a small number of large exporters who, as a consequence, see their market power increasing. In this paper we analyze long-run scenarios for the European natural gas markets in a model, NATGAS, that explicitly includes both factors, resource constraints and producers’ market power.
We analyze the impact of conditions on the global LNG market on market shares of pipeline gas suppliers, as well as on the speed of depletion of indigenous European resources. We focus on how shadow prices of resource constraints affect substitution patterns in the various scenarios. Keywords: European natural gas market, complementarity model, market power, resource rent.

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